EVENTS

By
CompiledPeter Nordahl /
May 17, 1994

REBELS TIGHTEN HOLD ON RWANDAN CAPITAL Some 60,000 Hutus reportedly were trying to flee Rwanda's capital, Kigali, yesterday after Tutsi rebels blocked the last remaining road out of the city. The exodus began after the insurgent Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of the hills commanding the highway to Gitarama, 20 miles southwest of Kigali. Gitarama is the temporary seat of the Hutu-dominated interim government. The Tutsi-led rebels also were advancing on it. Closure of that route means the insurgents have Kigali encircled and cut off from reinforcements. The Hutus, Rwanda's ethnic majority, feared retribution from the rebels for massacres throughout the Central African nation that have taken up to 200,000 lives, mostly minority Tutsis. Militias directed by extremist Hutu politicians have been blamed by human rights organizations for most of the carnage. Fighting in Bosnia

Bosnian government forces yesterday reported making fresh gains in northern Bosnia. The fighting made a mockery of a new international peace plan worked out Friday in Geneva among the foreign ministers of the US, Russia, and several European Union members. The advance moved Muslim-led government troops closer to the corridor that links Serb holdings in Bosnia to Serbia proper to the east. Much of the fighting in northeast Bosnia has focused on the corridor, which the government is trying to cut and the Serbs are trying to expand. Israelis pull out of Gaza

In one of the final steps of withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops lowered the flag over the military-government headquarters before dawn yesterday. Hundreds of Palestinians cheered, danced, and chanted nationalist slogans as they watched the pullout from the Gaza City compound, which also served as the Army command center and the central jail. Amtrak train derails

An Amtrak train jumped the track before dawn yesterday, killing one person and seriously injuring at least four others. More than 170 people were treated for lesser injuries. The Silver Meteor - bound from New York to Florida with about 400 people aboard - derailed after apparently striking part of a freight train on an adjoining track or hitting something that fell off that train, officials said. Closing Chernobyl

Ukrainian officials said yesterday it will cost between $6 billion and $8 billion to close the Chernobyl nuclear-power plant - twice their estimate earlier this month. The officials talked to reporters at Kiev's Borispol Airport on returning from the United States, where they held nuclear discussions.

The United States and the European Union are demanding that Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear-power accident in 1986, be closed.